Sanctuary of Asclepius, Butrint
About
Epirotes founded this healing sanctuary to Asclepius at the foot of the acropolis around 300 BCE, and worshippers left more than 300 votive offerings in a hidden chamber behind its rear wall. Roman colonists later rebuilt the small temple, enlarging it to the west and north and roofing it in brick-faced concrete tied into the theatre above. The cult kept drawing pilgrims well past 117 CE, its festivals filling the theatre next door.
What happened here
A healing sanctuary where the treatment is a night's sleep. Patients purify themselves, sacrifice, and then lie down in a long open hall to wait for a dream in which the god appears and either heals them or prescribes. In the morning the priests interpret. The prescriptions are practical as often as not — diet, exercise, cold baths, a walk — and there are doctors on site alongside the priests, with no sense that the two are in competition. Cured patients pay for a plaque recording what was wrong and what was done, and the walls fill with them; a model of the healed limb or organ is the cheaper option. Snakes and dogs live in the precinct and are part of the treatment.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →